Super Bowl Banner Appearance For Flagmaker

The same team also will be at the NBA All-Star game next month and the America`s Cup sailing race in May.

The team is called Flying Colours USA, a 40-employee company in west suburban Carol Stream that got its start three years ago making flags for the Chicago Bears.

Since then, owner Rick Stallings, who at 6 feet 8 and 275 pounds looks like he used to play for the Bears, has expanded his business of making custom sports flags, pennants and banners into national markets with such corporate clients as McDonald`s Corp., Cadillac, Pepsi-Cola, Sears, Roebuck and Co. and American Airlines. The company also makes customized apparel with corporate and sports logos and operates several stores selling flags.

Flying Colours crews last week finished making the banners that will adorn Minneapolis` Metrodome for the Super Bowl next week and is at work on paraphernalia for the NBA All-Star game in Orlando next month.

``If there is a recession out there, I haven`t seen it,`` said Stallings, a former international banker who started the business almost by accident in 1988 after turning down a corporate transfer.

He intended to open a gift shop for his wife, Kay, to run while he looked for another job in banking. He got into the custom flag business while trying to sell some surplus inventory with the Bears` logo on it back to the team. The Bears liked the banners but wanted larger ones.

So he had them made. After they showed up as the backdrop at Bears press conferences, he began to get calls from fans for copies. Then other professional football teams inquired about banners.

That work led to his being selected by San Francisco designer David Kerchman to make the Super Bowl banners.

``I started manufacturing in the basement of my house`` in a nearby suburb, Stallings said. The business grew so quickly that he had to lease space in a Carol Stream industrial park and has since expanded there as leases became available.

Though the company specializes in custom work for corporations, Stallings has gotten increasing numbers of requests from individuals for such things as banners bearing family crests. They can cost ``a couple of hundred bucks, depending on the complexity.``

Corporate banners typically run from $9 each for a 12-by-18-inch banner to $4,000 for one as large as 30 by 50 feet.

``We stress quality and service. We chose not to concentrate on price because I didn`t want to live and die by the discount,`` Stallings said.

Despite the deteriorating economy, he says his revenue doubled in each of the first two years and tripled last year. The company`s biggest problem, like that of a lot of small businesses, is generating capital for expansion. Stallings said that thus far he has plowed most of the company`s earnings back into expansion.